Notes To My Mother

  Perhaps you have seen birds fluttering in one place in the air.   I have seen Northern Harriers do this as well as kestrels.  But most commonly it is the white-tailed Kite.  Three years ago there was a family of them in the Laguna De Santa Rosa and I had the privilege of witnessing their behaviors and capturing some of it with my camera.  This first picture (above) shows a juvenile in flight and an adult on the branch.  The juveniles are distinguishable by the brown markings.  This Kite family had three juveniles and one adult, perhaps two adults but I only saw one at any given time. Late one evening I saw this scene with the adult holding a gopher or vole while the three juveniles gathered. I was particularly taken by the orientation of the juvenile's body on the bottom left.  As it turned out I got several shots of juveniles in unusual positions.  On one occasion I photographed one of the juveniles doing a somersault in mid air (topi...